Abøut Ant Lib
★ ørigins ★ missiøn ★ get invølved
The Ant Liberation Front1 is the independent organisation for Antpeople. Conceived in late October 1998 by fans disappointed with Adam Ant’s ‘Official News Service’, we have arranged regular social gatherings, managed a vastly popular website and continue to produce content for all fans of Adam & the Ants to enjoy.
★ Ant Lib ørigins
Part consumer group, part fan movement, Ant Lib was devised as an alternative to A.N.T2/Topnotch/ANT2000 in response to a ten-year record of underachievement and broken promises. Ant fans never received an apology (or indeed refunds) but we believe Antpeople have the right not to be ripped off and deserve much more in return for five decades of loyalty.
Ant Lib is dedicated to Antpeople everywhere, and believes that each Antperson – although bound by a common interest in the music of Adam & the Ants – is an individual and, regardless of their own race, gender, sexuality and nationality, have something to contribute to Ant Culture …and have the right to publicly debate it without fear or threat from those acting on behalf of the commercial entity of Antmusic.
★ Øur MissiØn
Between 1998-2015 Ant Lib developed a mission statement and historically identified four main objectives for the organisation as follows:
- To promote Adam, the Ants, Antpeople and independent Ant Culture3
- To provide an online forum for Antpeople to voice their opinions and a postal service for those without regular access to the Internet4
- To co-operate closely with Adam, and the Ants wherever possible whilst retaining the right to constructively discuss decisions that are not in the fans’ interest5
- To promote friendly links with other non-profit music fan organisations6
Although offered ‘Official’ status by Adam Ant himself directly7, to be recognised as the ‘Official’ Adam Ant / Adam & the Ants Fan Club is not a primary aim of Ant Lib. We are accountable to our members – the discerning Ant fan – and strive for the representation of Antpeople whom have no ‘Official’ alternative.
★ Get InvØlved
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re interested in where we’re heading. To improve and grow our services and ideas, we need YOUR help, involvement and feedback on how to best support the fan community and legacy of Adam & the Ants in an age of AI slop, rip-off merch, influencer grift and misinformation.
Ant Lib is dedicated to Antpeople everywhere like you and strictly NON-PROFIT, so we do not simply describe ourselves as an “Ant Fan Organisation” or “Adam & the Ants Community Outpost” as a cynical attempt at generating cash for looking flash.8 Even while on hiatus, just keeping the lights on in the background ran into £££s, so grifters need not apply.
With this in mind, we try to save valuable resources wherever possible, so if you can offer help by spreading the word to fellow Antpeople, contributing content for our website or forthcoming book, or have ideas for collaboration, please contact us today!
You Know it Makes Sense!
- A working title inspired by the T-Rex equivalent the ‘Marc Bolan Liberation Front’ it wasn’t supposed to be a long-term name but ended up sticking as there weren’t any other suitable suggestions. This was later shortened to ‘Ant Lib’ to disassociate with terror organisations and was also a cutesy play on ‘adlib’ (“Ad-am Lib” ha ha). Similarly, ‘Ant Lib 25’ was meant as a short-term title for the 2023-2025 ‘comeback’, so we’ll just call ourselves Ant Lib from hereon for brevity. Still open to suggestions all these years later though because it’s a pretty daft name, really, and terrible for SEO. ↩︎
- A.N.T. were great in the mid-late ’80s when they kept fans informed with glossy A4 newsletters and parties when there wasn’t much going on in the Ant World. Unfortunately, they went to pot when Manners & Physique was released in early 1990 and they ran off with our cheques and postal orders – no explanation, no apology – then someone completely out of their depth schmoozed Planet Ant into allowing them to rip everyone off, all over AGAIN – Boo! Hiss! ↩︎
- This is pretty much self-explanatory and remains unchanged, however it is subject to contemporary caveats (see below) ↩︎
- The Ant Lib Forum (1998-2008, RIP) kicked ass (as our AmericAnt friends might say), where Antpeople ideated, argued, found their life-partners and talked toot – sometimes all in the same discussion thread. The (previously free) 3rd party forum host started charging us megabucks to function and, as social media took off, it made sense (then) to move the online community to Facebook, Twitter and our website where the latter thrived – particularly around the time of Adam’s guerilla gigs of 2010, which were mostly announced/reported via our news/blog. As for the postal service, our ‘Lifetime Subscription’ became less financially viable later on, mainly due to rising postage costs. Brexshit and whatever other Little Englander skullduggery has made the United Kingdom of Plague Islands even more cut-off from the rest of the world has made this even less workable but we’ll see what happens as sending/receiving stuff through the post does generate a warm fuzzy feeling, and all that. ↩︎
- Not much to caveat here, other than: We have, we do, we will – while the latter is crucial to arm/country/planet’s length independence. But always be wary of wolves in Ant clothing – see below*… ↩︎
- As pirates will confirm, a rising tide lifts all boats so facilitating a happy healthy Ant community is for everyone’s benefit. If you would like to collaborate with or join the Ant Lib team, please drop us a line via the form. *Grifty narcissists need not apply. ↩︎
- The only website/organisation in the 21st century to achieve this…twice. It’s a long messy saga for another time/place as these footnotes are already making Das Kapital look tame. ↩︎
- Having kept every receipt from the past 27 years, we’re happy to supply the invoice for running Ant Lib to whatever ‘official’ entity that dare accuses us of anything otherwise – then they can pay what they owe us …minus the £50 Adam did once hand over! ↩︎